


Fusion

by Accidentallytechohazardous, KissedByNightshade



Category: Bleach
Genre: Body Horror, Fusion, Gen, Implied Violence, Nonbinary Character, Steven Universe fusion, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4399742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissedByNightshade/pseuds/KissedByNightshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The question occurred — What if Shinigami could fuse their spirit bodies into a single being for combat? — and we decided to answer it with a series of self-indulgent drabbles.</p><p>Heavily inspired by the properties of fusion in the show Steven Universe.</p><p>Chapter 6: Rukia and Orihime</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Carnelian

It’s hard to imagine there could be an event that would jar the Sixth Division. After all, this wasn’t exactly the kind of environment where ‘slacking off’ just to gawk could be considered in any way acceptable, so ripping the soldiers’ eyes off of their work was an accomplishment in and of itself. Let alone that those sets of eyes should peer out of doorways and into halls, childishly huge with fascination and lit up like lanterns in dark corners.

Enormous footsteps pound away dutifully behind the Captain of the Sixth Division, a shadow of long and lanky proportions that he isn’t used to looming overhead quite effectively. The pace is surprisingly chipper, and Byakuya can tell in the slight pause of their pace when his entourage turns around to wave.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” he warns them. “This procedure was meant to increase your powers, not make you a spectacle.”

There’s something very jerky in their movements, a sharp kind of quality about them when the looming figure slides around him to give the captain an earnest look under long, dark lashes. “Me, a spectacle? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The Captain tempers his patience in a restrained inhale. “Of course not. This changes nothing, even when you’re… what do you call yourself again?”

It’s disorienting, to watch four arms move all at once in different directions. Rukia’s creamy complexion mixed with Renji’s deep color into a cool, even tone. It’s not fully clear whether this being still counts as a Kuchiki or even as his sister, but Byakuya could only imagine what his relations would think if anyone associated to the family had the thin, dark lines of jagged tattoos peeking out of their sleeves and crawling around their collarbone like vines as this shinigami did.

One set of arms gestures towards the being’s chest, bony fingers spread over a broad plain of skin while the other set gesticulates outwards with an air of being faintly exasperated. “We’ve been over this. I’m Carnelian!”

It’s a mystery which part of them it is that makes their reactions so fiery, so emotional. Whether it’s Renji’s attitude or Rukia’s stubbornness, or (if one is to believe that this, this person, is an equal accumulation of the two people) some mixture of both. Their voice is laced with an eerie kind of impatience, as if the two minds are still in the process of melding and in a rush to get everything out at once.

They also never address Byakuya by name. Never ‘Captain’, or ‘Nii-sama’, and he’s rather grateful for that. This is already confusing enough without complicating it further.

Carnelian frowns at him, and their face is reminiscent to depictions of young demigods and heroes staring in historic legends of action, oval and youthful but still carved into sharp features that add years of supposed wisdom and cleverness. Dark, almost black, violet light shines in their narrow eyes. “I’m not a new person to you. I’m someone you’ve known for years.”

And in a way, they’re correct. He can tell in the way they breath, in the way they move- sharp, pointed, like they do everything else. Warrior precision. Graceful instinct.  
It’s not quite a perfect science, though. Some individual qualities stay just that- individual. Like the Renji-esque way Carnelian huffs when they storm down the hall, or that Rukia might be the personality more responsible for forgetting to duck at low doorways.

 

* * *

 

 

They fight like Renji and Rukia do, but also differently.

They feel different, too. A sensation from inside, in the blood under their skin. A new skin, that hasn’t been worn before. A new body shaped differently to be more efficient, more powerful. An exhilarating energy. A fresh, entirely new, entirely unique experience.

It feels like harmony, when Carnelian tosses their sword from one hand to another while a third hand brushes away sweat from their brow, pushing away heavy, dark bangs plastered to their face. Throwing a long, high braid over their shoulder to bang against their back with every motion.

And the air seems so much lighter, they, as themself, is lighter. Like steam coming together from ice and smoke and carrying their body with it. It pours out of them like heat off of their skin. Like fire breathing from their lungs into their mouth, long teeth gritted and lips pulled back into a wide grin that shows every fang.

They feel like burning, like a spark flying through the air still white hot and deadly. Every leap, every kick and slash and they just cut through matter like sparks cut through air. A white-hot flame.

“Ku- Carnelian-san.”

The effect is automatic. The sword freezes at their side, vicious steel pointed to the ground while dark red drips down it’s severe fang. Long lashes beat against sunlight, wide ink-colored brows that taper at the edge like the cut of a knife furrow in confusion. No part of them is so used to having to crane down to find Orihime Inoue.

It strikes them that she is so small, so soft-looking, when they have to get down onto their knees to establish steady eye-contact.

Even for being swallowed in their shadow, Orihime bares down on Carnelian with eyes full of curiosity. Like gazing into space, or over the edge of a cliff. Not with fear, persay, because even after fusing only a few times Carnelian knows enough to figure that not everyone is cool with a four-armed, eight-foot-tall warrior jumping in and swinging a sword around. But she just looks at them like breath-held fascination.

Orihime points at Carnelian’s hands, which they’ve placed on their lap in anticipation. Only then do they realize that two of their hands are smeared with rust, dark and wet. When one pair of arms was handling the sword, the other pair must have been handling everything else. “You’re hurt.”

Before they answer, they think automatically ‘it’s a fight.’ but some depth of knowledge tells them that won’t cut it as an appropriate response.

“It’s not mine,” they decide on as a reply. Ripping through hollows and the like, of course they’re going to get a bit dirty. But as they look down at their hands they don’t just see knuckle bones pressing against skin, streaked with enemy blood. They see dark holes, flattened like tree-stumps against their fists and oozing openly. “-Oh.”

Orihime smiles and it looks so bright and soft, just like her and it's still shocking. And without thinking, she takes their hand in hers. The fusion’s massive fingers look like nigtmarishly huge spider legs compared to her tiny palms, and they light up with a familiar light like gold or starshine.

Carnelian watches, violet eyes held with rapt attention as the skin which had been unblemished and so new before was smoothed back over. Time unwritten and redesigned. Funny, how Orihime’s powers could put almost anything back into their natural state- even something that wasn’t strictly ‘natural’ in the first place.

“I guess I forgot that I could get hurt.” Their voice falls flat. Dull. How could someone forget that they’re flesh and blood, skin and bones? But they seemed to powerful and unstoppable at the time. Practically indestructible.

“I know the feeling.” Orihime responds right away, voice consistently kind. Everything consistently kind. Her hands roam over their’s with fascination, pressing her tiny palm against the much larger one like stepping into the pawprint of a giant, ancient animal. “I think I must forget I get hurt a lot, too. Sometimes I just don’t even think about it! It seems so much easier when I just put everything back into place.”

It feels silly, all this fuss over some stupid scraped knuckles. A new kind of heat ignites inside of them, but not the same smoky fire as before. A prickling heat, like sun through the window. It lights up under Carnelian’s skin like a candle behind wax paper.

“Well, how about,” they decide, and surprise themselves yet again in doing so. “I remember for both of us? Then you don’t have to worry about it. You can focus on more important things.”

Orihime beams at them again, this time it’s so much bigger. She holds up two of their hands in her tiny ones, and their over two stay folded in their lap. “Even if you don’t, I’d still heal you and put you back in however many pieces you wanna be.”

They fight like Renji and Rukia do. Like ice and smoke and power and blood and a fierce, fiery protector. Like a guardian. Like they would any other way.


	2. Neptunite

A lot of energy goes into a fusion. They said that when the science first came out- pure power, the souls of two powerful spirits coming together as a warrior. As a unit of pure energy.  


But they didn’t say it would be like this. When he moves it feels like he’s dragging up massive weights with him, this liquid force running through his blood, under his skin trying to hold him down. The sky falls against his back and he unburies himself from the earth’s gravity to find his feet on solid ground. Fighting against being flattened. Nobody said it would be so hard to get moving, but maybe that’s just the new body warming up.  


He stands wobbily- what are these long, spidery things underneath him? Legs? A body. Two arms. His gaze looks down at his hands, the dark skin contrasting with the white knuckles, bones that seem to leap out of the skin like they’re bursting out of flesh. A new set of lungs works inside a new chest, breathing in air for the first time and it feels like he’s filling up with oxygen to the point of brimming, like there isn’t room for it in his swimming head and his body that feels so heavy with- something. He thinks it might be power.  


“Izuru?” A familiar voice tries. He knows that voice. “Shuuhei?”  


He knows that voice and he definitely knows those names, but it’s not him. This is so overwhelming. There’s an inexplicable need for movement, for activity, but to where, and why? Light keeps popping in his vision like firecrackers. Those hands with fingers like naked bones touch the soft side of a long throat, up the edge of a narrow jaw like grazing the edge of a knife. Over thin lips, a long and straight nose, up to a pair of eyes, and then the second pair of eyes.  


Wide palms smooth over his skin, and a voice that almost sounds familiar but startling new says, “What’s wrong with my face?”  


The world leaps into clear focus, and the first thing that Neptunite sees is the allies who witnessed his birth, struck with awe and morbid fascination at the intensity of four blue-grey eyes swiveling around in their sockets before baring down on the world below him like a lid closing down on a casket.  


-  


“Soooo? How does it feel?” Rangiku’s graceful hands climb up the flat plate of his abdomen, nails skimming just under his ribcage across heavy black fabric and skin stretched tight. Her eyes are huge and blue looking up at him and catching overhanging sunlight. Neptunite feels like a newborn being blinded by their shine. Everything feels blinding, two additional eyes struggling to make sense of everything they’re seeing, each intricate detail. He’s tempted to cover his face with branch-like fingers. “Are you ready?”  


How does it feel? Neptunite blinks, and he’s not sure all four eyelids close at the same time, cloudy gray irises peeking through white strands of hair like pale fire that hang in his face. “It feels…. funny.”  


Renji has to look up at him, too, and his fierce expression looks odd when he only comes up to Neptunite’s chest. “Do you feel strong?”  


A distant war-cry rips through the air, and something inside Neptunite shakes down to the very core. The reason he was formed for this particular occasion. The reason for his creation, And an unfamiliar compulsion lurches through his bones. He feels strong.  


The hilt forms in his hands without his realization that it was taking shape, a solid leather grip that fits in his pipe-cleaner fingers. Nor does he think of the crescent-moon claw that bleeds out silver before taking shape.  


Because he’s something unfamiliar to both separate entities of him. Some unknown, unpredictable consequence tied between killer instinct and patient destroyer.  


And when that sickle slides through his enemies, blade curving under skin and flesh and hooking around bone like he’s dredging for treasure, he feels strong.  


He feels like a vehicle of annihilation. He feels stronger than strong.  


-  


“Do you think it’s time that the two of you unfuse?” It comes from Kensei Muguruma, which surprises him when it actually sounds like a question and not as a strong suggestion or blatant instruction.

There seems to be a running theme of people being uncomfortable to look up to meet Neptunite’s eyes, or perhaps that’s more in just the eyes themselves. He’s tempted to crouch when talking to Captain Muguruma just so that he can stop having to crane his head down all the time.

Captain Otoribashi said the same thing a little earlier. While three eyes hover on the captain of the Ninth, the fourth can see the other captain loitering nearby. Patiently waiting for his lieutenant to come home.

“I’m almost finished.” Neptunite says while flicking his wrist, and a line of crimson flies from his sickle into the grass. “This is what I was created for.”

It doesn’t escape him to wonder if Muguruma is his captain, and therefor still has jurisdiction over his actions. Neptunite captain, and Neptunite’s actions. If he and Rose are both his captains. Or if he has no captain at all. Where does the chain of command go with fusions? They haven’t existed long enough to figure out. He’s too new. One of the first fires created by cavemen when they smashed stones together and before the invention of burn wards.

(Second on the list of things that don’t escape him- how Visoreds might feel towards the creation of something that it the entity of two different beings as one. But Neptunite is not two people. He’s not even a person)

Kensei’s eyes narrow, though not exactly with blatant disapproval. “We need you back at the Gotei. And we need two lieutenants at their stations. Not one.”

“I have a job to do here.”

He does. Fusions are bonds. This bond feels uncertain. Familiar, and reliable, not at all like he’s in danger of breaking apart. But wary. Like the status of his existence is still feeling itself out. Testing the waters, and exploring this new leap into a new intimacy with every step he takes forward. It’s an impulsive state of being, a meteorite hurtling across the curvature of the earth, naked to the effects of the atmosphere and the elements and to landing.

But he’s bonded. And it’s a bond he wants to know. It’s a trust he wants to know.

Neptunite tries to put these in words that make sense, and surprises himself by not being able to. His thoughts feel too big for words, and he ends up reaching blinding through the air as if to grasp the idea. What he finds is, “Please trust me?”

Whether this question was directed towards Kensei at all is up for debate, but the captain considers this anyways.

“Check back in two hours.” He tells Neptunite. turning his back on the fusion. It’s not dismissive when he does it. It’s a sign. “Don’t wear yourselves out.”

“I won’t.” But he’s not sure he means it.

Why not take a risk? He’s already pushed himself up against gravity tying him down to earth. There’s no point holding back now.


	3. Labradorite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third installment of the FUSIONVERSE series. Renji and Izuru are feelin’ themselves.

“Look,” an exhale scraped out over long teeth, “Just because I can hold this up all day doesn’t mean I want to.”  


“You wanted to help.” Shuuhei points out, ducking under the doorway of twisted metal precariously suspended overhead by the grace of four long arms. Labradorite’s face breaks into an easy smirk, thin lips peeling over pronounced canines.  


“You have to admit, I’m suited for the job.” Labradorite’s arms creak and grind as the destroyed steel beam is tossed from their hands to the solid ground. Strength is easy for them- their arms never get tired, or overworked, or sore. Fingers bones the color of white coral leave smooth, bullet-sized dents where they curled into and clutched the metal.  


Their hazel eyes catch Momo scooting around their hip, crouching down to better see eye-to-eye. Hair the hue of amber and late autumn leaves drape over their shoulders, down their back and over their chest, catching light that reflects brassy gold. They try not to get too distracted by their own self and offer an open palm. “Need a boost?”  


Momo looks as if she could roll her eyes, but is too torn by delight with a curious smile as she sets her foot down. “Careful- whoop!” Her arms windmill to stay upright, suddenly being forklifted high into the air and onto the next level. “Watch it, you showpoff.”  


“I hope you guys are having fun over there.” Shuuhei mutters from deeper into the construction sight, looking back at Labradorite with his hands on his hips and a vaguely miffed look that amuses the fusion to no end.  


“Of course not.” Labradorite relies, stooping to follow into the building’s steel skeleton. Their knuckles drag against the ground, primal and powerful and ready.  


-  


It had, at the very least, come as a surprise when the fusion was complete. In fact if they hadn’t been themself at the time, Labradorite would have almost certainly assumed that something had gone horribly wrong in the process of their birth. Something was not as it typically should be.  


It was not the frame of them, which was longer and ganglier than both of the shinigami that made them. A body shape that seemed to be constructed out of pipe-cleaners, razorwire. All sharp edges and tangled inside, made of lightning-zig-zags on long legs. It was up to the shoulders, which were swathed in dark fabric around the back and across the chest that no skin was visible. It was where the shoulders remained one solid pillar of a body, where there were no arms made of flesh and blood to be seen.  


The examiner would find no trace of a connection between the torso and the four limbs that were unattached but nonetheless present by the fusion’s side. Labradorite’s skeletal arms were simply unrestricted by the mortal barriers of joints and flesh and blood. Their phalanges would drag on the ground at their heels, loping and completely oblivious to sensation. No skin to get worn down, no muscles to get tired, and no flesh to be pierced.  


The first time they were formed, Labradorite examined their hands and could count each individual piece like a puzzle set. The hamate, the carpus, about another dozen more, all dry and sun-bleached and perfectly aligned. As if all of the flesh had just been peeled away and the blood neatly swabbed off.  


A question rang from somewhere deep in their brain- what have you become?  


The answer was received in four tightened fists, eyes of a twisted blue and brown and rimmed around the edge of their eyelids in teal that turned to face a dark sky full of void and space- something unique.  


-  


“Look out!”  


The warning is a bare second too late, steel coming to crash down on the cement base in huge bursts of metal and dust. Labradorite’s hands fly up to catch a descending beam, their limbs feeling no pain but still straining not to drop such a heavy object that comes hurtling towards their head.  


Two yellow, luminous eyes blink down at the shinigami from up above. The hollow’s gaping jaw exposing the blackness within before starting on it’s long, reptilian body. The way it hisses says ‘predator’ all over, but to Labradorite the way it turns tale and scampers up the tower to search for higher ground reeks ‘prey’.  


“Status update?” Shuuhei’s voice is a distance echo in their mind, eyes narrowing on the target growing more distant. Momo responds “Fine.” And Labradorite forget what the conversation is that happens around them before her voice drags them back to earth. “Guys?”  


“We don’t have time for this. Wait here.” Labradorite’s voice is a sharp edge, a serrated weapon and it feels good. It feels good to block out objections, mind narrowing to a single pathway when they brace their hands and knees on the cold concrete floor and push off. And despite their larger-than-life size they are weightless and massless in the air.

Cold, bony hands reach behind their own back, fingers pressing against the mountain range of a solid spinal cord. It’s with a sense of relief- of release, even, when the skin parts like a surgical incision and Labradorite draws their weapon. The pale-white whip snaps against the air like pearly teeth, like vicious and hungry fangs.

Such easy prey didn’t stand a chance.

\- The present theory on how their arms work right now is that they are not controlled by some physical force. No invisible muscles or strings attached to pull and operate like a marionette.

The hypothesis is that they move and hold and work because Labradorite wills them two. It’s the mind, not the body, that controls their motions.

So what does that mean when it’s so easy for them to destroy? These hands that are a direct manifestation of their will? Labradorite catches them moving without their conscious awareness, twitching and fidgeting and clenching when they aren't paying attention.

Their body isn’t just their will, but their impulses. Their entire soul. And if there’s one thing that they’ve never lacked, it’s a complicated soul.

By the time the battle is finished, the whip dissolves into into ashes and starlight. A new spine has already grown back in their skeleton, spinal segments popping back into place like the keys on a piano being replaced. They roll their shoulders, stretching their back and feels everything snap back into it’s proper location.

The voices of their comrades come from below, but it’s muffled by the distance and the cool night air and the buzzing of much louder and much more demanding thoughts. They bounce off the inside of their skull like hot, blinding lights. Like high-beams.

Labradorite should unfuse. Fusions that stay together too long run the risk of losing themselves, the individual person’s consciousness dissolving. Soon, those individuals can’t even tell what they are and what their counterpart is. No guide is given for those who weren’t completely sure unsure in the first place.

Labradorite’s arms cross over their chest, and there’s a lack of warmth. The touch of their hands so smooth like stone, miniscule flecks of bone dust grinding off and floating away like stardust. It’s easy to pretend it’s not their hands. It’s Izuru’s, or Renji’s, or a combination of the two. They miss the way they were.

They should unfuse, until the next time they are needed. And when they want to be together again they will know and knowing will be better than not knowing. They exist even when apart, and in a way they always have. It’s reassuring for Labradorite to know that they won’t die, even when they don’t exist. It’s like being immortal.

They should unfuse-

No later than tomorrow, though.


	4. Hematite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is that possible? To fuse with a fusion?

It knits a tightness in his gut. It plays cat's cradle with his intestines, though he knows he shouldn't let it. He is so  _brittle_  though, made from twigs and leaves, so brittle and weak that he can't help himself. His own folly, so easily ignored.

Yet he can't put it aside so simply, not when the source is so near at hand. They're a marvel to watch — seven, seven-and-a-half feet of mechanical cruelty. Hard lines of muscle flex and he watches dark skin — dark, dark, darker even than Hisagi's — crack and pour forth tattoos, as if the earth itself had seams.

It isn't until they step into shadow a moment later that Izuru realizes that the etchings glow a deep, dark red. When they grin and ask him why he's staring, if he likes what he sees, he pales and looks away.

Maybe these fusions weren't such a good idea. Maybe they'll end up being used, like weapons, like  _dogs_. Maybe they'll go out of control.

When the newborn Bloodstone sends the single-fanged zanpakuto spiraling into the nearest enemy, spattering blood across the ground and dashing the corpse's guts against pavement, he knows what is most likely.

The knot in his stomach twists just a little tighter as he watches, before he turns away. Three, four, five. Six. He can hear the dying moans as he turns away, and he knows that he has work to do.

 

* * *

 

"There are too many of them."

Izuru is busy wrapping a hasty bandage around a shinigami's wrist. He doesn't look up as he rips another strip of cloth off with his teeth. "I'm not sure what you expected."

They're already so much taller than him individually, but together they tower over his crouching form. In their shadow he can see the eerie glow from their tattoos in the shadow. They have to fold inward for their second set of arms to flex on his shoulders, forcing his head in their direction. "Kira. Be serious. They're too much for us."

For the first time Izuru realizes that there's blood dripping down their shins. It's hard to tell, since it has the same luminscent property as the tattoos. Fascinated, Izuru reaches a finger and touches the oily stuff, running his fingertips over it. Then he reaches a hand to Bloodstone's arms, trying to see if they're of the same stuff, if they're really tattoos or something else. The third and fourth hands catch him before he can get there. "No."

They're glaring at him in a very Hisagi-like way, espousing frustration more than actual anger in four grey eyes. But it's hard to tell; the twisting vines of string that replaced his organs keep him fluttering, keep him loopy. The four hands are practically holding him upright. "What do you want?"

"Are you mad at us?" In Bloodstone they lack Hisagi's restraint. In Bloodstone they lack Renji's confidence. Or do they? There's restraint and confidence as well, manifested in new ways. Manifested in the way they walk. In the way they hold their zanpakuto.

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"For fusing." They lean in and kiss him, and when they pull away Izuru looks down to see ichor on his top. Stains from the tattoos — the sliced flesh. "For fusing without you."

"No, it's—" He doesn't know. The knot unwinds a bit. "Something else."

"Then help us." They're very persuasive like that, with two hands on his hips and two on his shoulders. " _Fuse with us._ "

Is that possible? To fuse with a fusion?

**Only one way to find out.**   _We'll figure this out._

He feels light and very, very heavy.

 

* * *

 

They lose a few inches as they step out of the light. They no longer bleed from the hundred-thousand places where they met. Other than that, it's difficult to tell how they've changed, other than the addition of a fifth eye and a streak of gold in slightly overgrown bangs. They're the same. They're the same. They're–

It's only the lithe speed that Izuru brings that saves them from toppling over. Their third leg aches at the sudden new angle, and their mouth opens in a bark of laughter. They inhale. The air smells acrid — particularly so, thanks to the addition of a third nostril — the earth is rusting beneath their very feet.

"This feels like death," they hear themself say, and some part of them loves it.

When the Menos come, they peel the rust-colored tattoos off their arms and slice outwards. Even at only seven feet, four arms strike as much damage as all of them individually and then some. The third leg, once they learn how to use it, gives them balance.

"Where now?" The last enemy is torn apart, rusty knives shaped like lightning bolts shredding its flesh like cobwebs.  "No one left here."

"I don't want to go back. Let's keep going."

When they laugh, the whole world shakes, the threads that pull away straining meagerly against their will. Nothing can rip them apart.


	5. Tiger's Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy accidents.

It was an accident when it happened first. Neither of them expected it, there with lantern lights flickering all around like fireflies. It was only dancing, they would marvel. Only dancing.

Only, it was more than dancing. It was the music, a low beat somewhere in the distance. It was the way their nerves loosened and their minds opened with just a little bit of sake. It was the warm summer breeze, smelling like pine and honey and safety, the feel of smooth wood planks sliding under bare feet. It was the eyes all around — for both of them craved some small piece of spotlight.

It was that suddenly, as Rangiku pulled Izuru in for a tight hug, that they fell. Only when they tried to get up did they realize that the tangle of arms and legs no longer existed, instead replaced by a single set of limbs — long, smooth, sturdy, not marred in the slightest.

It startled them, but not to the point of losing it. They’d fused before, though not with each other, so they spent that first moment groping in the dark of their minds for that white-hot border where one ended and the other began.

_Kira... So this is you._

_Is this what happiness feels like?_

When they looked around, the eyes were on them still, wider and more interested, so they smiled. Positively beamed. “Sorry for crashing the party, hmm?”

Renji was gaping. Shuuhei, who had gone pale, looked as though he might pass out.

 

* * *

 

The second time they fused, it was Rangiku’s idea. “I want to see!” she said, and Izuru agreed, because fusing with Rangiku felt a little like being safe.

In Rangiku’s trifold mirror they traced their small breasts, their gently-sloped shoulders, the bridge of a petite nose with seven-fingered hands. Other than the addition of a second thumb and forefinger on each side, the only truly noticeable abnormalities were a third eye, off center and hidden behind a tuft of fluffy gold hair, and a significant reduction in height. Together they amounted to five-foot-four, not an inch more.

“Cute, so cute!” they kept muttering. Izuru didn’t care, but he let her have her way for the time being. 

Rangiku spent the next hour dressing them up, remarking in their shared mind how cute they looked with every outfit. They were in the middle of switching hats around on their head when Izuru finally got bored and they fell apart like a bag of spilled beans across the floor.

After a moment of startled silence, Rangiku burst out laughing, a high, trilling noise that made even Izuru smile. For how easy it had been, how simple...!

 

* * *

 

They were no longer whole the next time, no longer in one piece. The third eye became a bloody gash on their forehead, and ten thousand veins dripped across their skin, stark red and blue and mottle green. The extra thumbs had drawn higher on their wrists as a talon, useful for gouging eyes and stomachs and throats.

When the enemies came, however, it was the smoke that caught them, not the claws. Tiger’s Eye stared them down, weaponless it seemed, as onward they drew, closer and closer, until suddenly the air became thick, sticky. The miasma around them seemed suddenly like water, like drowning, and suddenly this wisp of a shinigami didn’t seem like such an easy target.

Only it was too late, because backing away was like wading through a marsh. And then the fog had them, all of them, by the ankles and wrists, by the necks. A hundred winding ropes — no, snakes! — and not a soul could move.

Not a soul except Tiger’s Eye, who could walk amongst them, that garden of statues (not even breathing because of the gathering smoke in their lungs). And Tiger’s Eye smiled sadly, and smiled happily, and the only reason they didn’t fall apart was because the conflict between bloodlust and regret was in both of them.

When death finally took them in the flash of a talon, it was a mercy, and the mercy was for all of them, the fusion included.

They were cradling themselves, kneeling in the blood, when Bloodstone finally arrived. The other fusion was, as always, coated in ribbons of blood, looking grim.

_Is it his fault? That we’re like this?_

Bloodstone’s arm stayed around their shoulders all the way back. No one was unfusing. No one wanted to unfuse. Blood leaked intermittently out of both fusions, mixing on all of them with their enemies’ blood. 

_Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe we were like this to begin with._

None of them unfused, though they were bone-tired. Instead, all four of them — both of them — slumped together and slept. 

They would answer the hard questions tomorrow.


	6. Topaz

At the time, they had only come to consider that fusion was possible between shinigami. An already rare accident of crossing souls, like a mutation of sorts. Studying it defied reason- how were the scientists and the scholars supposed to quantify a relationship? Things like cooperation, loyalty, understanding, trust, and other things that you can’t divide down and pin to a dissection table remained a mystery. Fusion was a happy accident. **  
**

It must have started with something reasonable. Rukia trying to explain what is was like, this new and bizarre sensation of fusion. How weird it felt to dance even though it was to prepare for battle- this coming from the wielder of Sode-no-Shirayuki of all people. Rukia can feel the white blade’s well-meaning (but still condescending) smirk pressed into the back of her neck, breath as cold as a winter snap.

“I mean- it’s not like normal dancing, where you’re just making up the moves as you go along.” Rukia tries to explain, but somewhere in the middle it feels like she’s mucked it up. Her foot hangs in the air as if to demonstrate mid-dance move, or perhaps just to take an enormous leap forward. “It’s supposed to come from… something deeper, I guess. Somewhere way down in here.”

She waves her hand in the general area across her chest, trying to indicate the heart. The soul. The wherever the real ‘deep down’ is. “It has to mean something, or else it’s not really you.”

Orihime watches her, arms wrapped around her knees and eyes lit with concentration. Her lips play with a frown. “What do you mean ‘deeper?’”

After all, ‘deep down’ is a big subject. Thinking about a person’s true self, who they are at the core- you could think about that kind of thing for years. You could think about that without even really knowing you’re thinking about it. It’s like trying to fathom the edge of the universe. It’s like trying to understand living on a planet that’s hurtling through space from the perspective of a garden snail.

“I mean-” Orihime starts, and Rukia waits expectantly in the middle of her pose without daring to move. “Maybe if you’re thinking too much about who you are ‘deep down’, you’ll have a harder time being that person.”

Rukia blinks once, her chest feels tight like something is rattling around in her ribcage. “I guess I wasn’t thinking about it like that.”

“Yeah…” There’s a bare second of pause before Orihime’s spine goes rigid, straightening her shoulders and eyes flying open and alert. “I-I’m sure you weren’t doing it badly, though! You’ve already fused before so you must be practically an expert at great fusion dances!”

Rosey pink rushes to Orihime’s cheeks, vibrant blush and vibrant eyes even as her eyeline wanders to the floor. Her fingers tighten around her knees. Rukia keeps looking at her through her bangs, Orihime can feel the weight of her eyes as Rukia drops her stance.

Rukia reaches back to very inelegantly scratch the back of her neck, elbow jutting into the air. “Well- not exactly. I was sort of thinking I could get inspired somehow.”

“Inspired.” Orihime repeats, looking back up. The gears churn and a brave idea is invented. “Oh, I know just what you need!”

Little does Rukia know, of course, that when it comes to dancing Orihime may not be an expert herself. But you don’t need to be a expert to be inspired. Sometimes a little inspiration is just music from a dusty radio in a cozy apartment. Sometimes it’s the way her hair sways when she bobs her shoulders, the angle of her footsteps when her toes tap to the rhythm.

It’s a hand in a hand and a hand on a hip, another living body at your fingertips with all it’s heat and it’s softness.

It’s fusion.

-

“I can’t believe it.”

Her shoulders shrug, a lopsided smile curling the corners of her full lips in an expression that can only be described as a completely unapologetic ‘what can you do?’ “It just sort of…. happened?”

Ichigo chews on his knuckles, probably still getting used to not having to crane his neck all the way down to make eye-contact. It’s Renji, however, who pinches his brows with his finger and his thumb. “Shinigami have been training for months t’ hold a fusion for more than a few hours. You two-” He motions at her with a flat hand like he’s producing evidence for inspection at a courtroom. “-managed it entirely on accident!”

“Weird, right?” Topaz admits, and her voice sounds odd. Not odd-bad. Odd-good. Like a melody. All three of her eyes wander up towards the night sky. One brassy brown eye, one dark blue, and a third smack between the two shining a deep hazel. “I should tell Rangiku-san.” After all, she’s certainly much taller now. She’s going to need an entirely new wardrobe.

-

There’s only one moment where doubt overshadows her experience. Realization washes over her like ice-water, slipping under her skin and soaking into her bones. Topaz feels every inch of her freeze, and then stretch. Nearly falling apart, feeling Orihime’s fear grind against Rukia’s confusion.

“Where is it?”

Soft but firm hands pat down her clothes, over the soft curves of her stomach and her chest where she would expect to find something pinned. Finally her nails comb through a mass of thick, dark hair.

There’s so much of her hair Topaz almost can’t believe it’s all attached to her, the way it swings and hits against her back and her hips. There’s more than enough to search through before her fingers collide with that feels like cold metal. It’s unfamiliar, and like everything else it’s new. Could that be… Sora’s pins?

Yes, and no.

Topaz’s feet are bare, but the concrete doesn’t even graze her skin as she rushes over to a store window. The streetlamps bounce off of her reflection like orange fire, against the cold glass when she presses her palms up to the window.

There, the hairpin sits upon her head innocuously pinning her hair back at the ear. Six petals, much huger than before, open up towards the moonlight. They’re the color of a lake that’s been frozen over.

All three eyes watch Topaz’s reflection as she reaches up and gingerly taps the tip of one of the petals. It looks sharp enough to cut, to skewer her finger all the way through to the bone, but of course it doesn’t mar her skin. She forgets fusions are so strong. She forgets that she is so much stronger than she looks.

At once a single touch feels like opening the floor and letting a blizzard inside. A wash of biting cold, a razor fury and an indomitable, undeterrable wall of screaming wind. It’s terrifying and powerful. With eyes closing shut Topaz commands herself not to feel the cold when it stabs at her, but the pain never comes.

She opens her eyes and she know longer wears a hairpin but bares a massive shield on her arm. White like a sheet of ice and emblazoned with a frozen flower in the center. It glimmers like starshine.


End file.
